Asia

Chinese workers in Vietnam

Hopping the coach to Cambodia

THEY came across the border in dribs and drabs, eventually numbering as many as 1,500: all of them Chinese nationals, fleeing angry mobs in Vietnam. Well-dressed and relatively well-heeled, most arrived by coach at Bavet—a run-down Cambodian casino town on the border with Vietnam—and into the welcoming arms of convivial immigration officials on the Cambodian side. They seemed a far cry from a much older image of refugees crossing Indochinese borders: the poor and persecuted families who were scrambling for safety a generation ago.

But the relief among these semi-skilled labourers was palpable. One Chinese citizen waved his Chinese passport to another foreigner and said “problem, big problem”, gesturing back in the direction of Ho Chi Minh City, the commercial centre of southern Vietnam. His travelling companion, also Chinese, raised a finger to his own throat, as if it were a knife, and drew a line across it. This was the danger they had fled. With their passports stamped at immigration, both men were hurried back aboard the air-conditioned coach that had brought them this far. The way to Phnom Penh took them past the gaming tables of a deserted Wynn Casino complex and another called Le Macau.

Popular protests against China broke out in Vietnam on May 14th after CNOOC, a Chinese oil giant, installed a mobile oil-drilling rig just 220km off the Vietnamese coast in the South China Sea. Territorial disputes there, including the question of sovereignty over the Paracel islands and the potentially petrochemical-rich waters around them, have led to the worst breakdown in Sino-Vietnamese relations since 1979, when the two sides fought a bloody border war.

Vietnamese authorities have since clamped down on the rioting and arrested more than 1,000 people.But an exodus of sorts is already under way.The Chinese government has dispatched the first of five ships that are supposed to bring home citizens from Vietnam. It is thought that 3,000 have fled on their own over the past five days, about half of them into Cambodia.

Fully half of the states party to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have similar problems with China’s maritime claims. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia all have claims that clash with China’s view of its sovereignty in the South China Sea. According to its “nine-dashed line” doctrine (which is shared by Taiwan, officially), most of the sea belongs to China, including large swathes inside the 200-nautical-mile limit of other countries that adjoin it.

Two years ago Cambodia broke ranks with the rest of ASEAN. It effectively backed Chinese efforts to resolve maritime disputes with its neighbours on a series of bilateral bases. Vietnam would have preferred for ASEAN to unite as a front in its negotiations with China. Cambodia’s position split ASEAN, but it also seems to have established it as a haven for the Chinese who arrived on its eastern frontier this week.

Cambodia has long enjoyed unusually cordial relations with China, with whom it does not share a border. By contrast the ethnic majority of Cambodia, the Khmers, have a tradition of hostility towards Vietnam, their country’s powerful neighbour next door. This might be seen as a mirror image of Vietnam's own anxieties about China, the Chinese and their intentions, which are at least 2,000 years old.

A Cambodian lieutenant in Bavet, Prak Vibolochey, explained how the sudden migration of Chinese civilians appeared at his post. He said there were unusual movements shortly before dawn on May 14th, as the protests on the other side were riotous. Hundreds of frightened people appeared along the Cambodian side; some of Mr Prak’s comrades were deployed to determine what was happening. “The Vietnamese [border agents] were firm but polite; stamped their passports and told them to get out,” he said. The Chinese workers “came here with the other tourists; that's how they escaped.”

On a coach that pulled into Bavet on May 16th, a Vietnamese minder escorted a group of 20 Chinese. She explained on behalf of her charges that “there is lots of trouble and perhaps they don't want to speak about that. That is why they left.” She supposed there would be more Chinese coming in days ahead, despite the cessation of violence and assurances from the prime minister of Vietnam, Nguyen Tan Dung. Mr Dung said that the authorities would “conduct concerted and determined measures not to allow illegal protests that cause security and social disorder disturbances.”

Chen Qun, a petite 25-year-old woman from Hangzhou, in eastern China, worked till very recently in Ho Chi Minh City. Ms Chen, for one, was unconvinced by the prime minister’s words.

“The people in my hotel in Saigon [ie Ho Chi Minh City], were very kindly,” she said with a smile while boarding her bus for Phnom Penh. “They helped me a lot…But there were many young people, crazy people, who caused many problems, and we just had to go,” she said. “I’m not sure when it will be safe to go back.”

There are large Chinese diasporas in all South East Asian countries. The only ASEAN members which don't have territorial disputes with China - yet - are Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Thailand and Singapore.

But Thailand is on the edge of civil war and Burma has an election next year which will result in strife if the NLD are excluded from power - again. Cambodia saw widespread rioting last year. The large Chinese diasporas in SEAsian countries makes the situation especially dangerous, not least because they tend to own most of the wealth and if they flee they will take it with them.

Take Malaysia for example. About 30% of Malaysians are ethnic Chinese, and Malaysia has a dispute with China over James Shoal, 80 kilometers off their coast. Malaysia had a contentious election last year, and is already looking shaky.

What if the same thing happens in Malaysia as is happening in Vietnam with Chinese persecuted and forced to flee? Where will they go? Not to Thailand, because Thailand is collapsing into civil war, and not to Burma which is facing tense elections next year and which probably won't allow them entry anyway.

They may have to go to Singapore, the obvious destination since Singapore is an ethnic Chinese-run country, and where many Malaysian Chinese have relatives. But if Singapore lets them in the population would more than triple on an already crowded island leading to problems housing and feeding them.

These are the problems created by China's nine-dash line claims which have plunged SEAsia into a major crisis.

I have loved you as a child, soldier, and diplomat since the SEATO conference in Washington DC of August, 1957. Do any of you remember those hot summer “dog days”, our diplomatic holiday at my father’s family home of “Lindwood” in the rolling Virginia forest-hills where I fell in love with the treasures inside your Au Dais, your big tough leader and me played a children’s game together, and we first became good friends? You knew my father as “Ben” Wood. I’m “Chip”, and I remember you. And there are still some who remember Uncle Ho’s visit to New York and Boston a century ago.

My old friends, this is probably a mistake you have made. This kind of behavior should have been behind you many years ago! You are wiser and more clever than this! Of course it is difficult to make the transition from war & oppression to the wisest of worldly dreams. Ultimately, for example, look at Bill Gates. Could Fate, hard work, and patience lead Vietnam to a similar path, ultimately? Of course, but probably not by tomorrow morning at breakfast…

Of course many countries have come to you to start businesses because labor costs in their own countries have gone up. Yes, they have taken advantage of your low labor costs, often taken advantage of you personally, and in some cases, dropped many thousands of bombs on you, killed your men, damaged your women, sprayed terrible poisons upon your fertile land, and so on as we well know. All that and this is DONE, & now, yesterday’s “history”.

But: many foreigners like me came also to simply open our hearts to you because of the many centuries of troubles you have so stubbornly ENDURED. Often, we saw qualities in you we could not see in our selves, and so we admired you. And with your opening late last century, many more came with open hands, books, eyes, bank accounts, and so on. Of course!

You have seen the wealth of the foreigners. Have you become impatient, greedy, and jealous? Is this a transition stage where you ‘take control’ of your ‘own’ international businesses as my country did in ‘1776’, and Germany did before WWII when it kicked out the “Sons of Abraham”? If so, then skip the war bit, (’39-’45) and go straight to your own internal & external ‘Marshall Plan’ with new thinking by realizing: ULTIMATELY you NEED the rest of the world. America and Germany have 'harmonized' with their former enemies. It’s a lot of work over a long period of time, but the “HOW” of doing it is very VERY easy.

You certainly have the power to separate the good from bad. Piece of Cake, that. Now: can you make you country prosperous and well loved like some countries, perhaps a little like dear good old little Switzerland? How old are you compared to my America? Are you capable of greater patience than my own very young & often impatient America? Do you read history carefully? Edward Gibbon perhaps? What do you think, in reality, just a few more quick centuries to get this all sorted out and hunky-dorry? Or a little more than that, my old friends? Think and ponder your relationship with the whole world my dear old friends. The whole world. Good luck my dear old Vietnamese friends! I hope we meet again!

Not really, if the Paracel islands belong to China, the main island Yongxing Dao (Woody Island) has a population of hundreds with its own harbour and airport. Therefore, it has its own EEZ according to UNLOS.
The oil rig is only 50 miles from Yongxing Dao, but 150 miles from Vietnam.

Sino-Vietnam relations have been a roller coaster ride over the years. With reference to this latest episode, the risks of rousing uncontrolled and violent anti-China sentiment locally would appear to outweigh the (very slim) potential gain of China disbanding its oil rig. Apart from shaking foreign investor confidence in these testing times, nationalistic feelings may also spill over into frustration with other endemic issues such as widespread corruption and the persistent inability of the government to tame dangerous inflation. China’s ‘peaceful’ rise has proven itself to be a farce, and the US will be powerless to intervene given its debt ceiling issues -as well as its ‘symbiotic embrace’ with China via the currency trap. Best case scenario I see unfolding for VN would be for it to align itself with other noisy neighbours such as Japan, Korea, Phillipines... etc in a concerted anti-China PR campaign as these nations singillatim would not be able to match either China’s military or economic clout....

It amuses me how anti-Chinese shills always try to lasso Korea into these disputes. Korea is in no way hostile to China and has quietly shelved all disputes with China - meanwhile they're extremely aggressive with Japan.

Likewise, the Philippines and Vietnam are essentially despised by nearly all of their land and maritime neighbors as well as their minority populations.

Frankly, the nine dashed line looks exactly like a :-P. And it is perceived as such by China's neighbours.
None of those contested islands and reefs have been inhabited, how can they be any nation's inherent territory? Where's the commonsense in all of this?

It also amuses me how you sing a very different tune to what your alias would suggest :)

Just to set the record straight, unlike certain elements in this paper, I am not into China bashing - far from it. Incidentally, the USA also has a very tainted history of foreign policy since they attained 'superpower' status. China is simply safe guarding its own interests - who wouldn't? However, in a David and Goliath battle, an objective bystander would vie for the little guy – and one can’t help but feel a pinch of sympathy for the VN people as they seem to get embroiled in one conflict after another which is not of their choosing (think – China, French, Japan, US....etc).

As for Korea being roped in, South Korea would have every reason to be wary of China's movements given that China has armed and supported its rogue state neighbor.... and governments being despised by minority populations – I think we have arguably seen more of Uighurs and Tibetan resistance in China’s outskirts of late compared to the Muslim brotherhood in the Phillipines.

There is so much ignorance re: the actual international "law" relevant to this situation.

A poster said it was irrelevant whether or not China "owns" the Paracels, claiming Vietnam's (mainland) EEZ over rides that. Well, no it doesn't, islands have EEZs just as much as mainland territories do. This is why Japan has one of the larger EEZs in the world despite being rather small land mass. Japan has recently been succesful in getting UNCLOS recognition of an EEZ for Okinotorishima which is basically a rather small rock. There have been other cases establishing EEZs for islands/rocks with no permanent habitation, and little inclination to differentiate "rocks" from "islands", so the idea of permanent habitation being a pre-requisite for EEZ just has zero weight, and further damages the credibility of anybody claiming that as uncontroversial fact of law.

Many posters and columnists like to compare the claims of China (and only China for some reason) to theoretical mainland EEZs, ignoring that there are a bunch of islands in the area which all have their own EEZ. UNCLOS simply has no bearing on sovereignty of land territory, and sovereignty of land territory determines the EEZ in this case. More broadly, many other countries have laid claims to these islands, extending beyond their own "mainland" EEZs... Which is fine, the islands exist, and can reasonably be claimed by SOMEBODY, it just happens that until their sovereignty is mutually established the attendant EEZs will not be mutually established. This is not just a problem of China, but of all claimants, whose claims overlap with each other just as much as China... China being the more powerful one just seems the bogeyman of the moment, to be trottted out to justify the weaker countries currying favor from other powerful countries that aren't directly involved in the territorial conflict.

To note, it seems clear that Malaysia has the LEAST level of conflict, and is happy to pursue negotiations with China... Coincidentally, Malaysia is richer and less desperate than Philippines and Vietnam.

Now, China's "9 Dashed Line" certainly appears expansive on a map, although I don't see why any rational person would not understand it as a maximalist negotiating position, but again: these islands exit and have their own EEZs, and it is not unfathomable that China may have sovereignty over some of them. China uses similar grounds as Vietnam to claim territory in the Spratley's, in fact. Incidentally, China's actualization of sovereignty over the Paracels occured during the Vietnam War, and neither the US nor anybody else ever objected... Awfully strange for this article to mention neither that fact, or the actual underlying claims to the other islands in the Spratleys.

Now, EEZ guidelines are just that, guidelines that may be strayed from. Were Vietnam to accept Chinese sovereignty over Paracels, I can see them insisting that the EEZ border does not extent further West beyond the islands's territorial waters, and that to be an acceptable compromise for China. A similar solution may apply to the Diaoyu conflict with China/Japan. Resolving the Spratleys ultimately will need to involve agreeing on how to split up the islands, certainly there is enough islands and territory for all claimants to have "some".

The PRC owns and has owned the sole inhabitable island in the Paracels (wresting them from the ROC after WW2), and the ROC the only island that can naturally support life among the Spratlys. Per UNCLOS the uninhabited features nearby are China's, and the border of the EEZ is to drawn half way between Taiping and Yongxing Islands and the nearest coasts of littoral states.